Techno-Space-Time and Architecture
Joseph BerlingheriThe twenty-first century conception departs from this; It is increasingly, digitally global. Via the newfound connectivity of digital devices, the individual expands Giedion's simultaneity beyond their immediate proximity. No longer a question of ability or willingness, this digital human geography is a de facto part of the twenty-first century experience. Architects and their project users in this century inhabit non-contiguous communities, continually occupying multiple locations globally. It is/was one thing to design architectures that acknowledge users' awareness of adjacent spaces and create the cohesive experiences of Giedionian Space-Time. Frank Lloyd Wright's spiraling montages and Le Corbusier's Cubist compositions manifested this revolution in human perception long ago. Subsequently, many others have as well. The challenge twenty-first century designers face is whether those accomplishments and methodologies will prove adequate at the global scale of the emerging, perpetual now.
It may be tempting to dismiss this question and assume technologies will address the challenge. This is simplistic. The idea of users roaming around in virtual reality goggles or spaces defined by screens and speakers, or even holograms, is cumbersome and shortsighted. Information technology is progressing so quickly that hardware-intensive spaces are frequently antiquated before being occupied. Experienced practitioners will confirm that no accommodation of chases, raceways, or conduits will prevent that. Artists and designers will universally observe that their role is not merely to accommodate technology but to explore, express, and qualify how it redefines the human condition. Giedion is clear on this point. The Cubists, Futurists, and others were not merely concerned with accommodating technological practicalities but with expressing and addressing their effects on the human experience at a specific moment in space and time. To disregard this would be to shirk the responsibility of the artist in society. Thus, designers must re-conceptualize their physical architectures within the digital contexts their users occupy.
The new contexts architects face cannot be analyzed through conventional Post-Modernist methodologies either. These emerging communities are neither shaped by easily diagrammable typologies, defined centers, nor street grids. Despite being binarily regulated, they have no zoning resolutions to dissect. Though the boulevards and freeways of the digital world are unprecedented in efficiency, they neither cut wide, disruptive swaths through landscapes nor forcibly segment communities into homogeneous districts. Such conceptions are unduly static and maladroit for the perpetual now. It is far too pluralistic, dynamic, and extensive to be critically deconstructed this way. Like Heisenberg's particles, global digital communities are indeterminate. While they may be perceivable, their metrics are not simultaneously measurable. As such, the addition of digital technology to Space-Time has revealed a new spatial conception, resulting in digital human geographies that cannot be drawn with the maps of visionary central planners. This is undoubtedly why society has yet to contend properly with this new Techno-Space-Time.
The immeasurability of the new perpetual now renders tools of quantification impotent, demanding an alternative methodology. Giedion asserted that when technology and convention proved inadequate in the past, designers employed the arts. The arts are not tools of quantification but qualification. They will not conclusively define the condition practitioners are now faced with, but will provide understanding. To be most effective, the arts chosen must be specific to the conditions being explored. There may be some use for the painting, collage, and sculptural methods of the modernists in this endeavor. However, it is unlikely they will prove sufficient. Techno-Space-Time is an endless territory of relentless innovation and novel art forms. This is where the ensuing fertile design landscape lies. Interactive memetic imagery, videos, and live-streaming on real-time feedback platforms are the clumsy germinations of this incipient reality. Their synthesis of follower feedback will soon mutate them into sophisticated, yet unimagined forms and experiences. This evolving digital geography is the only location where explorations of Techno-Space-Time can occur. Therefore, today's designers must engage these nascent art forms to create physical architectures for the occupants of the new perpetual now.
Humanity struggles once again to grasp the consequences of innovation on their collective experience. The simultaneity designers must address is no longer merely physical and temporal, but also digital. The superimposition of technology on space and time has created a limitless number of non-contiguous yet interwoven communities that occupy a new spatial conception. This new Techno-Space-Time is complex, infinite, and, to date, unquantifiable. Siegfried Giedion's theories may provide an answer. Much like the early twentieth century, architects now contend with a new human experience that may not need quantifying as much as expression. Throughout history, art has spanned the chasms of perception when mathematics and science fell short. Giedion demonstrated how Renaissance and Modernist architects practiced the most advanced arts of their day to explore their new spatial conceptions. The twenty-first century version of these explorations will likely range far afield from the painterly and sculptural explorations of the past. In fact, the media they employ may not have yet been developed. Just like their predecessors, twenty-first century theorists, practitioners, and designers must actively embrace emerging artistic formats and technologies to properly address the human consequences of Techno-Space-Time on Architecture.
Joseph M. Berlinghieri is a practicing architect and regular inhabitant of Techno-Space-Time. He serves as an adjunct instructor at NJIT where he teaches architecture studio and seminars exploring the desegregation of theory and practice.
This essay was published as part of Transect Volume 5: Pedagogy (2024), Jacob Swanson, Daniel Girgis, Dhruvi Rajpopat, Fatima Fardos, Jimenna Alcantar, Elizabeth Kowalchuk, eds.
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